17 ms·

Calling advertisements "product tips" as if everybody is too stupid to understand what that means. They created an amazing technology that oftentimes is indist

Calling advertisements "product tips" as if everybody is too stupid to understand what that means. They created an amazing technology that oftentimes is indistinguishable from magic and then use it to deliver ads and - sorry about the tangent - kill people. This really is the quote of the century: > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads What a waste.

altmanaltman 6mo ago
A lot of amazing technology has been invented just for the purpose of killing people. It's nothing new. Humans are monkeys that like to kill other monkeys and no amount of civilization will change that.
- logdu 6mo ago
  It certainly won't change with that kind of attitude. Don't you want to live a peaceful life and be free from your baser instincts? I believe most people do, and if they don't, the mission of those who have education and means should be to show the way in that direction, instead of shrugging off the worst things and excusing them on "monkeys", which IMO is insulting to monkeys.
  - tornadofart 6mo ago
    The reflex to assign our morally wrong behaviour to the animal part in us is quite ironic. I just don't see jellyfish building concentration camps.
    - altmanaltman 6mo ago
      Yeah they just use their tentacles to catch prey and bring it into their body cavity, where they feed on and defecate out of the same opening. Maybe they don't because they lack the intellect to do so, not because they have any sense of morality.
      - NonHyloMorph 6mo ago
        Well not sure where the disgust for jellyfish is coming from but there isn't really much of a moral argument here. What you are saying is akin to: look you just ate a burger, what's next–the holocaust? (The organisation of the functioning of bodily orifices of the organism isn't really at all relevant for that. One might also add, that in the case of the burger, there might actually be an argument for some structural analogy that depends on the origin of the meat in a process of captivity and killing, that is organized in an industrial fashion..)
        satvikpendem 6mo ago
        Vegans actually do say that but I get your point, not sure what the parent is getting at either, if jellyfish were to have the intellect and dexterity I still wouldn't see why they'd build camps.
    - kergonath 6mo ago
      It’s a defense mechanism. Something we like to tell to convince ourselves that we are not as bad as they are.
  - altmanaltman 6mo ago
    Of course, we all want to live peaceful lives and be free from our baser instincts, but the entire society that allows you to live a "peaceful life" is based on exploitation and war. Just because you don't see it at home doesn't mean you don't profit/benefit from human violence and exploitation. As for my comment on "monkeys": 1. Larger primates like chimpanzees are known predators that hunt and consume smaller monkeys, specifically targeting babies 2. In the famous Gombe Chimpanzee War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War), a once-unified community split into two factions; over four years, one group systematically hunted down and killed every male member of the other. 3. In captive or introduced settings, groups may relentlessly bully "outsiders" who do not know the social norms, preventing them from eating or resting. 4. Non-lactating females may steal an infant from its mother and refuse to give it back, holding it until the baby dies of starvation or dehydration. "Insulting to monkeys" is only an idea when you anthromorphize monkeys from the actual animals they are to something like Rafiki from Lion King. Nothing is insulting to monkeys because they don't understand the meaning of insult or care about it. They're raw animals and so are human beings. If you look at the world around you today and think "yes, this is the result of people wanting to live a peaceful life" then I would say you're not being realistic.
    - defrost 6mo ago
      Chimpanzee behaviour is chimpanzee behaviour. Aspects of that behaviour appear in the behaviour of other primates, but not all primate groups have identical behaviours. Chimpanzee behaviours also vary by troop and circumstances, just as might be expected from social behaviours. Such behaviours _exist_, but they may not in fact be optimal, inevitable, etc. Perhaps chimpanzees behave as they do 'cause the bonobo's didn't invite them to the cool parties.
- jhrmnn 6mo ago
  I find it sad that while technological progress is seen almost as a given by virtually everyone, moral progress is often not even an aspiration
  - janalsncm 6mo ago
    Just to push back a little, I think if the U.S. did now what they did to Germany and Japan in WW2 it would be unconscionable. They are getting a lot of flak for bombing a school. But I think it’s fair to say there were a lot of schools in Dresden and Hiroshima. This isn’t to excuse anything but to say there has been progress even if it’s not as fast as we’d like. As far as the technology angle, the precision we have now and information we have now allow much more narrow targeting, but at the same time allows us to scrutinize military actions more.
    - tovej 6mo ago
      Small correction: there was one very publicized school bombing with a lot of casualties, but there's more than one bombed school. The US and Israel have bombed several schools, hospitals, and civil servants' offices, and residential buildings. I read HRANA's report on the war every morning. [1] It's a quick read, they are a reliable Iranian opposition source (now based in the US). Each day, there are multiple strikes on civilian infrastructure. No matter how precise they are, they are still war crimes. [1] https://www.en-hrana.org/ https://www.en-hrana.org/
      - pbhjpbhj 6mo ago
        Surely it's the precision that makes them war crimes? If the missiles weren't meter-accurate, and the intelligence didn't eg show the lines painted on the playground (even in images available to the public) then they would be able to pass it off as mistakes or enemy propaganda.
        kergonath 6mo ago
        No, what makes them war crimes is the intentional targeting of non-combattants. Being lousy at aiming weapons does not absolve of any war crime. The accuracy helps with showing intent, though, because when your 50% accuracy radius is a couple of meters and you put a couple of missiles on a target that’s a hundred of meters of anything else, it’s hard to argue they were sidetracked.
- miki123211 6mo ago
  This is where incentives strike us once again. Unlike in any other pursuit, in war, governments have at least some incentive to be efficient, lest they be outcompeted by the other side. In peacetime science, all they care about is crossing the is, dashing the ts, and making sure that no icky ethics violations are likely to cause a PR scandal and get somebody ousted from their post.
- croon 6mo ago
  Monkeys don't generally like killing other monkeys though.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
worldsavior 6mo ago
[flagged]
gorgoiler 6mo ago
I don’t think the quote is particularly fair. You could just as easily see it as the best minds are building huge amounts of amazing, free technology and need a way to pay for it. For every microsecond level ad auction broker there’s a free Android update, cat video platform enhancement, calendar app feature, or type checked scripting language release. HFT on the other hand — now there’s a tech black hole! [edited to add What have the Romans ever done for us?, below]
- the_gipsy 6mo ago
  Doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
- hsbauauvhabzb 6mo ago
  If you don’t think that LLMs won’t result in an insurmountable volume of spam on all web foru Oh wait, your post was written by an LLM.
  - gorgoiler 6mo ago
    It was not! I don’t think it adds much to this thread to refute the accusation though, but I would add: if you’d tried to out me by asking me to write a haiku about buttons, you’d be reading a haiku about buttons right now. It’s as reliable a signal as looking to see if I use hyphens and dashes. (I love haiku!)
    - kbelder 6mo ago
      look at the c key so faded and worn out from wear always getting used
- BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
  Hard disagree. It brought panhandling to where generosity once prevailed. It brought us social media engagement metrics and 140-character-limited 'interaction' and cluttered, flashing, distracting, human-psyche hacking interfaces. It brought all the c*nts who only saw dollar signs. Agree on HFT. (Disclaimer: I'm focusing on the negatives to make a point, there probably are some wild benefits, but I'm on the side of preferring to have taken longer to get there without all the examples I've listed - yes, I'm wishing for utopia, it's my comment I can say what I want). Edited to add: People would share their cats whether or not internet advertising existed. The cats would demand it.
saidnooneever 6mo ago
if its indistinguishable from magic please do some reading or refrain from using.
- yosamino 6mo ago
  You know, I'm well aware of how an LLM works (partially. mostly anyway), but if you pulled in any layperson from the street and ask them to explain how it's possible that they can speak natural language commands into their phones and get a useful response as if they were talking to a human, you'd be hard pressed to get a more precise answer than along the lines > It's something with to do with data, and I know it's not magic, but... Maybe you were not familiar with the quote I was alluding to: > Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
  - nextaccountic 6mo ago
    Data is like mana, LLMs are like djinns, and prompts are like incantations This reminds me the introduction of SICP https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/books_pres_0/6515/sicp.zip/full-text/book/book-Z-H-9.html#%_chap_1 https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/b... > We are about to study the idea of a computational process. Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes manipulate other abstract things called data. The evolution of a process is directed by a pattern of rules called a program. People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells. > A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform. That was the idea in the forefront of AI in 1984 - software can perform intellectual work. This idea is now mainstream since ChatGPT, but for many people in the decades prior, software couldn't be called intelligent - they just follow rules!
Razengan 6mo ago
And nobody has ever bought anything just because of an ad. You either already knew about shit through some other way or you were going to buy it anyway. Only people downvoting this will be the ones who perpetuate this Emperor With No Clothes racket. It's just a thin veil for surveillance.
- pbhjpbhj 6mo ago
  People buy things because of ads all the time. Probably you've done it too. I go out of my way not to buy products advertised to me, but I've definitely fallen to the incessant brain-washing of brand advertising. Probably regular advertising too depending what you include as adverts. I was surprised speaking to someone the other day, just out and about. They'd purposefully gone out to buy doughnuts they'd seen advertised. Kinda shook me. They seemed happy as Larry about it all though.
  - esseph 6mo ago
    > I go out of my way not to buy products advertised to me The most likely way to get me to not buy your product is to advertise it to me.
    - account42 6mo ago
      I too deliberately avoid products from ads, especially ones that annoy me. But I'm under no illusion that ads never work on me, "there's no bad publicity" and all. It takes active effort to avoid defaulting to the options you have already been told about and sometimes you're going to slip up. And since about every company advertises it's not like you really have any other option.
      - esseph 6mo ago
        > And since about every company advertises it's not like you really have any other option. I couldn't tell you what brand the clothes I'm wearing right now. I ordered bulk packs from somewhere in Asia.
  - 6mo ago
bpev 6mo ago
It's just the natural evolution of "They're not advertisements. They're recommendations."
benterix 6mo ago
> They created an amazing technology that oftentimes is indistinguishable from magic and then use it to deliver ads The people who created the tech and the ones that use it for ads in this case are two different groups - the first one is from Google (initial discovery) and OpenAI (realizing the potential of discovery and developing it into a product), whereas the second is the same company that decided that building ads into an operating system is an excellent idea.
- troupo 6mo ago
  OpenAI is testing ads already: https://openai.com/index/testing-ads-in-chatgpt/ https://openai.com/index/testing-ads-in-chatgpt/
  - blitzar 6mo ago
    Bringing the advertising to all of humanity.
latexr 6mo ago
> sorry about the tangent I understand why you felt the need to do it, but it’s still sad that you have to apologise for it. It’s not like if using technology for killing is a fringe hypothesis, it’s happening right now and on the news. It’s a discussion worth having. > This really is the quote of the century I loathe that quote. The people thinking about how to make others click ads are only concerned with themselves and their own profit. To me that does not qualify as a “best mind”. Maybe a “smart” or “good at computers” or “good at manipulation” mind, but certainly not “best”. A “best mind” should be capable of empathy and have a broad societal view of consequences for their actions.
- kergonath 6mo ago
  > A “best mind” should be capable of empathy and have a broad societal view of consequences for their actions Empathy and introspection are so 20th century. They are a hindrance when your aim is to make as much money and put it on fire as quickly as possible. Because somehow that’s how we decided to measure success.
  - duskdozer 6mo ago
    Another user posted this article earlier https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/introspection-andreessen-thiel-bezos/686566/?gift=r-WTQhvnGvzuRnYYVlVjeGammJJ_5Zcl3OYUYDz_ETo https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/introspection-andr... which was interesting
- matheusmoreira 6mo ago
  So when is society gonna start thinking of us in return? Where are our rewards? It's a rotten world out there. Everything is corrupt. Taking the moral high ground is an enormous sacrifice. In the best case scenario, society will just laugh at you for it. Chances are they will actually fight you since your moral stand will probably get in the way of their profitable schemes. I find it increasingly hard to blame people for playing the game. The reality is that the honest man is punished while the corrupt man is rewarded.
  - 6mo ago
karel-3d 6mo ago
They were not ads though. The companies did not pay for those, from what I can tell. Microsoft seemed to really thought they were being helpful here.
- zero_bias 6mo ago
  First hit is always free
- TheTxT 6mo ago
  There is no way they didn’t think they could sell those spots in the future.
- djeastm 6mo ago
  That's a generous interpretation. I see it as just preparation for selling the space. After a few months of "tips" they go to companies and say, "hey, you know those tips we have in our PRs? You can be in every 10th one of them for X dollars?"
  - skeeter2020 6mo ago
    I could totally see them priming the ad engine; next step would be "PR tips get viewed by X million eyeballs a month; how many do you want to buy?"
- wzdd 6mo ago
  Advertisement, noun. A notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event or publicizing a job vacancy.
- skywhopper 6mo ago
  “Ad” doesn’t mean “paid for”. A “tip” linking to some other place, injected into a place with no permission or context, is an “ad” in every meaningful sense (and if this “tip” system were left in place it would soon enough be turned into a pay-for explicit ad system). If someone at Microsoft deludes themselves that they are just trying to be helpful, that doesn’t change the impact and result of their actions.
aleph_minus_one 6mo ago
> > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads > What a waste. If you consider "what people (un-coercedly) spend money on" as "what people actually want", the situation gets obvious: People don't voluntarily spend money so that e.g. deep scientific questions are worked on or other things are done that are often claimed that "smart people should do". (by the way: a lot of problems that are claimed that "we need smart people to solve" actually don't need smart people (i.e. the problem could be solved by raw intelligence), but are rather "political" problems, i.e. problems of manipulating people). I wish it was different, but before you claim that it is a waste that "the best minds are thinking about how to make people click ads", you should better find an idea what these people should do instead.
- tovej 6mo ago
  Maybe resources shouldn't be distributed purely using a free market that can easily be manipulated, especially if the top dogs are allowed to use manipulative advertising and sales tactics.
  - aleph_minus_one 6mo ago
    > Maybe resources shouldn't be distributed purely using a free market that can easily be manipulated Which kind of resource allocation do you suggest? At least one can clearly tell that existing experiments with planned economies went really bad, so how do you want to overcome the problems that plagued existing big-scale experiments of planned economies?
    - tovej 6mo ago
      Why does everyone on the right always read "not totally free economy" as "planned economy". Regulate the markets. Have the government own natural monopolies. Have large government sellers and buyers in all markets. Break up monopolies. Ban harmful products and services. Ban marketing to children. Ban dishonest marketing. Ban planned obsolescence. Increase the capital gains tax to companies are incentivized to invest in production rather than pay out dividends. Ban stock buybacks. Have CEOs be personally responsible for crimes (remove the LL from LLC). Those are good places to start.
Gigachad 6mo ago
These people could invent actual AGI, and the only thing they could think to do with it is push ads.
- esafak 6mo ago
  "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads", Jeff Hammerbacher (2012).
- latexr 6mo ago
  That’s almost literal. Sam Altman has admitted early on their goal was to invent AGI and then ask it how to make money. https://www.startupbell.net/post/sam-altman-told-investors-bluntly-he-had-no-plans-on-how-to-generate-revenue https://www.startupbell.net/post/sam-altman-told-investors-b...
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

altmanaltman 6mo ago

A lot of amazing technology has been invented just for the purpose of killing people. It's nothing new. Humans are monkeys that like to kill other monkeys and no amount of civilization will change that.

logdu 6mo ago
It certainly won't change with that kind of attitude. Don't you want to live a peaceful life and be free from your baser instincts? I believe most people do, and if they don't, the mission of those who have education and means should be to show the way in that direction, instead of shrugging off the worst things and excusing them on "monkeys", which IMO is insulting to monkeys.
- tornadofart 6mo ago
  The reflex to assign our morally wrong behaviour to the animal part in us is quite ironic. I just don't see jellyfish building concentration camps.
  - altmanaltman 6mo ago
    Yeah they just use their tentacles to catch prey and bring it into their body cavity, where they feed on and defecate out of the same opening. Maybe they don't because they lack the intellect to do so, not because they have any sense of morality.
    - NonHyloMorph 6mo ago
      Well not sure where the disgust for jellyfish is coming from but there isn't really much of a moral argument here. What you are saying is akin to: look you just ate a burger, what's next–the holocaust? (The organisation of the functioning of bodily orifices of the organism isn't really at all relevant for that. One might also add, that in the case of the burger, there might actually be an argument for some structural analogy that depends on the origin of the meat in a process of captivity and killing, that is organized in an industrial fashion..)
      - satvikpendem 6mo ago
        Vegans actually do say that but I get your point, not sure what the parent is getting at either, if jellyfish were to have the intellect and dexterity I still wouldn't see why they'd build camps.
  - kergonath 6mo ago
    It’s a defense mechanism. Something we like to tell to convince ourselves that we are not as bad as they are.
- altmanaltman 6mo ago
  Of course, we all want to live peaceful lives and be free from our baser instincts, but the entire society that allows you to live a "peaceful life" is based on exploitation and war. Just because you don't see it at home doesn't mean you don't profit/benefit from human violence and exploitation. As for my comment on "monkeys": 1. Larger primates like chimpanzees are known predators that hunt and consume smaller monkeys, specifically targeting babies 2. In the famous Gombe Chimpanzee War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War), a once-unified community split into two factions; over four years, one group systematically hunted down and killed every male member of the other. 3. In captive or introduced settings, groups may relentlessly bully "outsiders" who do not know the social norms, preventing them from eating or resting. 4. Non-lactating females may steal an infant from its mother and refuse to give it back, holding it until the baby dies of starvation or dehydration. "Insulting to monkeys" is only an idea when you anthromorphize monkeys from the actual animals they are to something like Rafiki from Lion King. Nothing is insulting to monkeys because they don't understand the meaning of insult or care about it. They're raw animals and so are human beings. If you look at the world around you today and think "yes, this is the result of people wanting to live a peaceful life" then I would say you're not being realistic.
  - defrost 6mo ago
    Chimpanzee behaviour is chimpanzee behaviour. Aspects of that behaviour appear in the behaviour of other primates, but not all primate groups have identical behaviours. Chimpanzee behaviours also vary by troop and circumstances, just as might be expected from social behaviours. Such behaviours _exist_, but they may not in fact be optimal, inevitable, etc. Perhaps chimpanzees behave as they do 'cause the bonobo's didn't invite them to the cool parties.
jhrmnn 6mo ago
I find it sad that while technological progress is seen almost as a given by virtually everyone, moral progress is often not even an aspiration
- janalsncm 6mo ago
  Just to push back a little, I think if the U.S. did now what they did to Germany and Japan in WW2 it would be unconscionable. They are getting a lot of flak for bombing a school. But I think it’s fair to say there were a lot of schools in Dresden and Hiroshima. This isn’t to excuse anything but to say there has been progress even if it’s not as fast as we’d like. As far as the technology angle, the precision we have now and information we have now allow much more narrow targeting, but at the same time allows us to scrutinize military actions more.
  - tovej 6mo ago
    Small correction: there was one very publicized school bombing with a lot of casualties, but there's more than one bombed school. The US and Israel have bombed several schools, hospitals, and civil servants' offices, and residential buildings. I read HRANA's report on the war every morning. [1] It's a quick read, they are a reliable Iranian opposition source (now based in the US). Each day, there are multiple strikes on civilian infrastructure. No matter how precise they are, they are still war crimes. [1] https://www.en-hrana.org/ https://www.en-hrana.org/
    - pbhjpbhj 6mo ago
      Surely it's the precision that makes them war crimes? If the missiles weren't meter-accurate, and the intelligence didn't eg show the lines painted on the playground (even in images available to the public) then they would be able to pass it off as mistakes or enemy propaganda.
      - kergonath 6mo ago
        No, what makes them war crimes is the intentional targeting of non-combattants. Being lousy at aiming weapons does not absolve of any war crime. The accuracy helps with showing intent, though, because when your 50% accuracy radius is a couple of meters and you put a couple of missiles on a target that’s a hundred of meters of anything else, it’s hard to argue they were sidetracked.
miki123211 6mo ago
This is where incentives strike us once again. Unlike in any other pursuit, in war, governments have at least some incentive to be efficient, lest they be outcompeted by the other side. In peacetime science, all they care about is crossing the is, dashing the ts, and making sure that no icky ethics violations are likely to cause a PR scandal and get somebody ousted from their post.
croon 6mo ago
Monkeys don't generally like killing other monkeys though.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]

worldsavior 6mo ago

[flagged]

gorgoiler 6mo ago

I don’t think the quote is particularly fair. You could just as easily see it as the best minds are building huge amounts of amazing, free technology and need a way to pay for it. For every microsecond level ad auction broker there’s a free Android update, cat video platform enhancement, calendar app feature, or type checked scripting language release. HFT on the other hand — now there’s a tech black hole! [edited to add What have the Romans ever done for us?, below]

the_gipsy 6mo ago
Doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
hsbauauvhabzb 6mo ago
If you don’t think that LLMs won’t result in an insurmountable volume of spam on all web foru Oh wait, your post was written by an LLM.
- gorgoiler 6mo ago
  It was not! I don’t think it adds much to this thread to refute the accusation though, but I would add: if you’d tried to out me by asking me to write a haiku about buttons, you’d be reading a haiku about buttons right now. It’s as reliable a signal as looking to see if I use hyphens and dashes. (I love haiku!)
  - kbelder 6mo ago
    look at the c key so faded and worn out from wear always getting used
BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
Hard disagree. It brought panhandling to where generosity once prevailed. It brought us social media engagement metrics and 140-character-limited 'interaction' and cluttered, flashing, distracting, human-psyche hacking interfaces. It brought all the c*nts who only saw dollar signs. Agree on HFT. (Disclaimer: I'm focusing on the negatives to make a point, there probably are some wild benefits, but I'm on the side of preferring to have taken longer to get there without all the examples I've listed - yes, I'm wishing for utopia, it's my comment I can say what I want). Edited to add: People would share their cats whether or not internet advertising existed. The cats would demand it.

saidnooneever 6mo ago

if its indistinguishable from magic please do some reading or refrain from using.

yosamino 6mo ago
You know, I'm well aware of how an LLM works (partially. mostly anyway), but if you pulled in any layperson from the street and ask them to explain how it's possible that they can speak natural language commands into their phones and get a useful response as if they were talking to a human, you'd be hard pressed to get a more precise answer than along the lines > It's something with to do with data, and I know it's not magic, but... Maybe you were not familiar with the quote I was alluding to: > Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
- nextaccountic 6mo ago
  Data is like mana, LLMs are like djinns, and prompts are like incantations This reminds me the introduction of SICP https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/books_pres_0/6515/sicp.zip/full-text/book/book-Z-H-9.html#%_chap_1 https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/b... > We are about to study the idea of a computational process. Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes manipulate other abstract things called data. The evolution of a process is directed by a pattern of rules called a program. People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells. > A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform. That was the idea in the forefront of AI in 1984 - software can perform intellectual work. This idea is now mainstream since ChatGPT, but for many people in the decades prior, software couldn't be called intelligent - they just follow rules!

Razengan 6mo ago

And nobody has ever bought anything just because of an ad. You either already knew about shit through some other way or you were going to buy it anyway. Only people downvoting this will be the ones who perpetuate this Emperor With No Clothes racket. It's just a thin veil for surveillance.

pbhjpbhj 6mo ago
People buy things because of ads all the time. Probably you've done it too. I go out of my way not to buy products advertised to me, but I've definitely fallen to the incessant brain-washing of brand advertising. Probably regular advertising too depending what you include as adverts. I was surprised speaking to someone the other day, just out and about. They'd purposefully gone out to buy doughnuts they'd seen advertised. Kinda shook me. They seemed happy as Larry about it all though.
- esseph 6mo ago
  > I go out of my way not to buy products advertised to me The most likely way to get me to not buy your product is to advertise it to me.
  - account42 6mo ago
    I too deliberately avoid products from ads, especially ones that annoy me. But I'm under no illusion that ads never work on me, "there's no bad publicity" and all. It takes active effort to avoid defaulting to the options you have already been told about and sometimes you're going to slip up. And since about every company advertises it's not like you really have any other option.
    - esseph 6mo ago
      > And since about every company advertises it's not like you really have any other option. I couldn't tell you what brand the clothes I'm wearing right now. I ordered bulk packs from somewhere in Asia.
- 6mo ago

bpev 6mo ago

It's just the natural evolution of "They're not advertisements. They're recommendations."

benterix 6mo ago

> They created an amazing technology that oftentimes is indistinguishable from magic and then use it to deliver ads The people who created the tech and the ones that use it for ads in this case are two different groups - the first one is from Google (initial discovery) and OpenAI (realizing the potential of discovery and developing it into a product), whereas the second is the same company that decided that building ads into an operating system is an excellent idea.

troupo 6mo ago
OpenAI is testing ads already: https://openai.com/index/testing-ads-in-chatgpt/ https://openai.com/index/testing-ads-in-chatgpt/
- blitzar 6mo ago
  Bringing the advertising to all of humanity.

latexr 6mo ago

> sorry about the tangent I understand why you felt the need to do it, but it’s still sad that you have to apologise for it. It’s not like if using technology for killing is a fringe hypothesis, it’s happening right now and on the news. It’s a discussion worth having. > This really is the quote of the century I loathe that quote. The people thinking about how to make others click ads are only concerned with themselves and their own profit. To me that does not qualify as a “best mind”. Maybe a “smart” or “good at computers” or “good at manipulation” mind, but certainly not “best”. A “best mind” should be capable of empathy and have a broad societal view of consequences for their actions.

kergonath 6mo ago
> A “best mind” should be capable of empathy and have a broad societal view of consequences for their actions Empathy and introspection are so 20th century. They are a hindrance when your aim is to make as much money and put it on fire as quickly as possible. Because somehow that’s how we decided to measure success.
- duskdozer 6mo ago
  Another user posted this article earlier https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/introspection-andreessen-thiel-bezos/686566/?gift=r-WTQhvnGvzuRnYYVlVjeGammJJ_5Zcl3OYUYDz_ETo https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/introspection-andr... which was interesting
matheusmoreira 6mo ago
So when is society gonna start thinking of us in return? Where are our rewards? It's a rotten world out there. Everything is corrupt. Taking the moral high ground is an enormous sacrifice. In the best case scenario, society will just laugh at you for it. Chances are they will actually fight you since your moral stand will probably get in the way of their profitable schemes. I find it increasingly hard to blame people for playing the game. The reality is that the honest man is punished while the corrupt man is rewarded.
- 6mo ago

karel-3d 6mo ago

They were not ads though. The companies did not pay for those, from what I can tell. Microsoft seemed to really thought they were being helpful here.

zero_bias 6mo ago
First hit is always free
TheTxT 6mo ago
There is no way they didn’t think they could sell those spots in the future.
djeastm 6mo ago
That's a generous interpretation. I see it as just preparation for selling the space. After a few months of "tips" they go to companies and say, "hey, you know those tips we have in our PRs? You can be in every 10th one of them for X dollars?"
- skeeter2020 6mo ago
  I could totally see them priming the ad engine; next step would be "PR tips get viewed by X million eyeballs a month; how many do you want to buy?"
wzdd 6mo ago
Advertisement, noun. A notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event or publicizing a job vacancy.
skywhopper 6mo ago
“Ad” doesn’t mean “paid for”. A “tip” linking to some other place, injected into a place with no permission or context, is an “ad” in every meaningful sense (and if this “tip” system were left in place it would soon enough be turned into a pay-for explicit ad system). If someone at Microsoft deludes themselves that they are just trying to be helpful, that doesn’t change the impact and result of their actions.

aleph_minus_one 6mo ago

> > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads > What a waste. If you consider "what people (un-coercedly) spend money on" as "what people actually want", the situation gets obvious: People don't voluntarily spend money so that e.g. deep scientific questions are worked on or other things are done that are often claimed that "smart people should do". (by the way: a lot of problems that are claimed that "we need smart people to solve" actually don't need smart people (i.e. the problem could be solved by raw intelligence), but are rather "political" problems, i.e. problems of manipulating people). I wish it was different, but before you claim that it is a waste that "the best minds are thinking about how to make people click ads", you should better find an idea what these people should do instead.

tovej 6mo ago
Maybe resources shouldn't be distributed purely using a free market that can easily be manipulated, especially if the top dogs are allowed to use manipulative advertising and sales tactics.
- aleph_minus_one 6mo ago
  > Maybe resources shouldn't be distributed purely using a free market that can easily be manipulated Which kind of resource allocation do you suggest? At least one can clearly tell that existing experiments with planned economies went really bad, so how do you want to overcome the problems that plagued existing big-scale experiments of planned economies?
  - tovej 6mo ago
    Why does everyone on the right always read "not totally free economy" as "planned economy". Regulate the markets. Have the government own natural monopolies. Have large government sellers and buyers in all markets. Break up monopolies. Ban harmful products and services. Ban marketing to children. Ban dishonest marketing. Ban planned obsolescence. Increase the capital gains tax to companies are incentivized to invest in production rather than pay out dividends. Ban stock buybacks. Have CEOs be personally responsible for crimes (remove the LL from LLC). Those are good places to start.

Gigachad 6mo ago

These people could invent actual AGI, and the only thing they could think to do with it is push ads.

esafak 6mo ago
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads", Jeff Hammerbacher (2012).
latexr 6mo ago
That’s almost literal. Sam Altman has admitted early on their goal was to invent AGI and then ask it how to make money. https://www.startupbell.net/post/sam-altman-told-investors-bluntly-he-had-no-plans-on-how-to-generate-revenue https://www.startupbell.net/post/sam-altman-told-investors-b...

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]